The Lovereading4Kids comment

If you like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, you'll love The 10pm Question. This is a warm, surprising, quirky, yet real and intelligent novel you will fall in love with. It’s a coming of age tale of Frankie Parsons, a twelve year old boy (who thinks and acts much older) who worries incessantly about everyday life and the eccentric family around him. His new friend - colourful, creative, talkative Sydney - has relentless, unavoidable questions of her own that force Frankie and his family to face up to things that have lain dormant for years. Kate de Goldi has written a tender and endearing story that will break your heart and make you laugh in almost equal measure and the final icing on the cake - the quality of the writing is quite sublime.

It also has great crossover appeal to an adult audience plus it’s a great book for members of a family to enjoy together.

A message from the Editor of this book:

'Funny, frank and bold, Kate de Goldi's story doesn't fob off her readers with simple answers to complex problems. Sometimes a family can be full of love, but something unspoken can slowly undermine everything. Frankie, with his big 10 pm questions, is at once totally afraid and incredibly brave - a very real hero.'

Synopsis

The 10pm Question by Kate De Goldi

Frankie Parsons is twelve, going on old man. An apparently sensible, talented boy with a drumbreat of worrying questions steadily gaining volume in his head: Are the smoke alarm batteries flat? Does the cat, and therefore the rest of the family have worms? Is the kidneyshaped spot on his chest actually a golloping cancer?

Only Ma takes seriously his catalogue of persistent anxieties; only Ma listens patiently to his 10pm queries. But it is Ma who is the cause of the most worrying question of all, the one that Frankie can never bring himself to ask. Then the new girl arrives at school and had questions of her own: relentless, unavoidable questions. So begins the unravelling of Frankie's carefully controlled world.

About the Author

Kate de Goldi lives in New Zealand. She has won a number of accolades for her fiction, including the Katherine Mansfield Short Story Award and the Esther Glen Medal. Her book Clubs, illustrated by Jacqui Colley, won Book of the Year in the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards in 2005. The 10pm Question was a number one bestseller in New Zealand, a White Ravens 2009 selection as an Outstanding New International Book for Children and Young Adults, and the winner of the 2009 New Zealand Post Book Awards. In 2001, Kate was made a New Zealand Arts Foundation Laureate.